Sarcoptic mange has been anecdotally reported in Chilean wildlife during the last decade. Although this disease can have devastating outcomes for biodiversity, there is no comprehensive assessment of this potential threat in Chile. Because the current capacity to monitor sarcoptic mange and other wildlife diseases is limited in this country, we used abnormal alopecia to search for suspect cases across several sources of information to identify, to the extent available data allow, the location and temporal trends of wild mammals with this characteristic across Chile. We surveyed park rangers, examined rehabilitation center databases, and collated citizen and media reports. The information gathered suggests that observations of alopecic wild mammals, mainly foxes (Lycalopex sp.), their presence in the country, and the number of species fulfilling our case definition have increased over the last 15 years. Moreover, abnormally alopecic mammals are currently located broadly in Chile. We also confirmed the utility of abnormal alopecia to define a suspect sarcoptic mange case in the most commonly affected group, Lycalopex foxes. Our findings are highly concerning from a conservation perspective. We thus emphasize the need for an urgent surveillance and management plan for sarcoptic mange and other diseases that may be threatening Chilean biodiversity.

在过去的十年中，在智利的野生动植物中曾有过窃man的报道。尽管这种疾病可能对生物多样性造成毁灭性后果，但尚未对智利的这一潜在威胁进行全面评估。由于在这个国家，目前监测螨和其他野生动植物疾病的能力有限，因此我们使用异常脱发来搜索多种信息源中的可疑病例，以在可用数据允许的范围内确定野生哺乳动物的位置和时间趋势在智利各地都有这种特点。我们调查了公园护林员，检查了康复中心的数据库，并整理了公民和媒体的报道。收集到的信息表明，对秃头野生哺乳动物（主要是狐狸）（Lycalopexsp。），它们在该国的存在以及符合我们案例定义的物种数量在过去15年中有所增加。而且，异常脱毛哺乳动物目前在智利广泛分布。我们还证实了异常脱发的效用，可以在最常见的受感染人群Lycalopex狐狸中确定可疑的窃病例。从保护的角度来看，我们的发现令人高度关注。因此，我们强调需要制定紧急监视和管理计划，以应对可能威胁智利生物多样性的窃和其他疾病。